It’s time for allied web developers to “pull up”

Here’s how it happens.

The lack of competence of managers of companies and organizations that are contractors of web integrators is one of the reasons for the slowdown in the development of the domestic IT environment. They can be excellent marketers, system administrators, financiers, but their understanding of the peculiarities of web application development leaves much to be desired. This problem is most relevant for government organizations.

Stepup24 CEO Timur Alimkhanov gave three illustrative examples from his practice.

The site is made in a couple of days by two people, isn’t it?

Stepup24 has been on the market for 11 years. One of the common problems that we face is a lack of understanding by customers why the work of web developers exceeds their expectations and why so many people are engaged in one product. Now that everyone is cutting back on marketing spending, it has become especially relevant.

I will give a vivid example of this approach from my own practice. I have an acquaintance. Once, during a meeting, I told him about an interesting project that we are doing more out of interest than because of money, since its cost is three million rubles. To which he received the answer: “Yes, for what there are three million, you are doing these sites there.”

I began to ask the interlocutor how he imagines this work, how many specialists, in his opinion, should work on the project, how much it should cost, etc.

To which he received firm and typical answers for today: two people should work on the project at the most and it can cost no more than 50 thousand rubles.

It is noteworthy that my friend himself was engaged in programming in the past, at the time of his student youth he made business card sites in one day. And then for a long time he worked in state structures as a manager. Over the years, web development has changed a lot, but the official has remained in the past. He is unaware that a modern website is not only hundreds of unique pages, but sometimes dozens of business processes: from ordering a call back to paying for goods.

It is the old experience that managers who oversee issues in the IT sphere in companies often do not allow to adequately assess the labor costs for the necessary projects. A specialist may have excellent competencies in network administration, but have little idea of ​​what development of modern web applications is.

It turned out that many people have children, nephews or acquaintances who were fond of web programming and instilled in the heads of their older comrades that Yandex is just one page and no more.

For the sake of leadership

The opposite of the experience of past years, which generates the problems of the present, is the absence of it. Due to the scarcity in the industry, today there is an influx of young executives who have been trained in online schools. Or those who came from related fields – most often from marketing. They have great ideas, but they don’t understand how they are implemented.

I will give an example from the practice of one state organization. The manager of the new call figured out how to improve the quality of reports for management. But for this you need to develop a dashboard. The manager comes to the marketing department and sets a task. The staff tried to explain that it takes at least two months to resolve it. But the manager stated that the task must be completed within the specified time, since he had already promised his superiors that the new product would be ready in five days. Just in time for the next quarterly report.

Employees urgently turned to contractors and set a task. It turns out to be solvable, but for this six programmers have to work five days around the clock and it will cost 2,200,000 rubles. The employees reported the information to the manager. He laughed in response and said that the CIO of the organization, together with his deputy, would do everything themselves. They were puzzled. Predictably, after five days, no one saw any product that improves the quality of reports. As a result, a manager who does not have a full understanding of what web development is received a reprimand.

When tasks are set by an incompetent IT specialist

Oddly enough, problems can also be generated by IT directors of companies who themselves have gone through all the stages of career growth, starting once from the position of a line specialist – a system administrator. But often their status as the chief IT officer in the company breeds overconfidence, leading to inadequate project evaluation. As a rule, these are former system administrators who do not always understand the specifics of modern web development. Let me give you another example from practice.

We won the tender for the development of the company’s website. I’m attending an introductory meeting with a client. 15 people meet me. The first conversation frankly did not work out, at first they hinted to me that I would refuse to work. At the end of the conversation, they said openly that I would not hand over the project. A break was taken for two days.

At the second meeting, the conversation was already substantive. After half an hour of discussions, we moved on to discussing the terms of reference. At the same time, the IT director of the customer, instead of the 3-page TOR attached to the tender documentation, suggested that we develop a new technical task for 300-400 sheets and fit it into the same money and radically change the essence of the work stated earlier.

During the discussion, the Deputy General Manager, an extremely intelligent woman, asks me: what is the problem and why can’t we do as they ask? I had to explain that their requirements were written for the creation of a corporate website, and they are asking for the development of an internal corporate portal with a hundred internal services, integration with third-party services and optimization of more than a hundred internal business processes. To implement such a technical task, a team would be required several times larger, which costs more money and time.

The Deputy General Director reasonably asked the question: how did it happen?

The answer is simple. The IT director of the company, who prepared the terms of reference, was simply sure that he understood everything in web development and the tasks set by him were relatively simple, solved quickly and using standard mechanisms. After this meeting, he never returned. But in the end, we found a compromise on how to fulfill the tasks set by the customer and not offend ourselves. Subsequently, we developed a very good relationship with the company.

I gave three stories that clearly illustrate that the time has come for the management of developers’ counterparties to improve their own competencies so that their work is more efficient.

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